Acer Aspire S 13

The Acer Aspire S 13 Review

A Deadly Bombshell Cleverly Disguised as Sweet Innocence!

Sleek. Sexy. Fashionable. Powerful. We believe that these were the words written on the planning board while they were developing the Acer Aspire S 13. This little notebook is able to hold it’s own in a market currently being flooded with notebook choices, and has the extra “oomph” to stand above the rest in it’s specific class…with class.

Nice Curves Hot-Stuff!

Photo via Acer

We were very pleased to have a chance to get our hands on this super-slim device, which measures in at a ridiculously thin 14.58mm! From the moment we opened up the box and first laid our eyes on it, our “impressed-o-mometer” readings started climbing.

After a quick charge, she was ready to go! From pressing the Power Button to chilling around on the Operating System “Ready Screen”, we hardly had enough time to say the words, “Darn, this Acer Aspire S 13 is fast!”. To quote a “techno-phyle” (an individual who is unparalleled in their passion toward new technology) that was with us at the time, “I have never seen a system boot up so fast!”. Score 10 points for the 512GB Solid State Drive that anchors this little marvel!

The Acer Aspire S 13 comes rolled with the Intel Core i7 Iris Processor(6th Generation) and 8GB of Low Power DDR3 RAM Memory. This combination alone speaks for itself, and boldly justifies the responsiveness we experienced while running day-to-day applications like the Microsoft Office Suite, browsing the web and getting stuck on YouTube playlists of those epic “Don’t Laugh Challenge” videos.

After performing like a champion through these mundane tasks, the notebook peaked our curiosity, so we started to delve a little deeper into the potential of it’s performance.

Come at me Bro!

Photo via Acer

We installed a Free Open Source Home Theater Media Center Application (Kodi) and ran some exceptionally large movie files and this is where the Acer Aspire S 13 literally sparkled! The image quality was magnificent, but what gave us goosebumps was the native Dolby Digital Sound coming out of this device. The Surround Sound replication was jaw-dropping good! Even though the LCD screen is only 13.3inches in size, it did not bug us at all and will not be a deal breaker should you be interested in purchasing this notebook.

To quote the same tech-savvy gentleman previously mentioned, he said, “I always believed bigger was better when it came to screen size. This Acer Aspire S 13 can easily convert me from my 17inch screen to a 13inch!”.

Next, we decided to install some games, and played a round or five of Counter Strike: Global Offensive at very acceptable graphic quality levels. There was no noticeable frame drops and each game was very visually enjoyable, we will however not go into how rusty my skills are, resulting in abysmal Kill:Death Ratios, so I quit while I had “some” dignity left and sought after a safer and simpler benchmark tool. Enter 3DMark Pro (Futuremark)!

Running the Cloud Gate 1.1 test designed for regular notebooks, the score was above the average, which convinced us that the Acer Aspire S 13 could handle the Sky Diver test designed for gaming laptops and mid-range PCs. We were not surprised that yet again, the Acer Aspire S 13 scored above the global average benchmark with a score of over 4k! In a nutshell, the onboard 5200 Intel HD Graphics performed exceptionally and worthy of mentioning-ly well! (yes, that is now a word!)

Additional wow-ing features include the 11ac Wifi with MU-MIMO, HDMI, a USB 3.0 port which will charge devices even with the laptop turned off and a Type-C reversible USB port which can transfer data at up to an amazingly fast 5Gbps. There is no space for an optical drive which is fine, because who still uses CDs when USB storage is so affordable and simple? (I say while dodging rotten tomatoes) Lastly, the keyboard is backlit with adjustable illumination intensity to suit your requirements. Fancy!

8.9

Class

8.8Look and Feel

9.3Functionality

8.5Value

Conclusion

The retail price of the Acer Aspire S 13 comes in at around the R12,000.00 mark, which considering it’s practicality, is not an unreasonable price for this ultra-portable notebook. It is thinner and lighter than the lion-share of travel-friendly notebooks on the market, and is very much geared toward the fashionista, which ties in very conveniently with the below featured video, where the Acer Aspire S 13 can be seen as part of a fashion shoot. Please do not misunderstand me, this is a really incredible piece of technology that can do a little bit of everything, and does it really well, however, it is primarily beneficial for the traveling executive and has the potential in being a bold competitor (or alternative) to a very popular brand that previously dominated the “thin-and-light” notebook industry.

I pretty much started gaming on Famicom! For those who didnt survive the flood on the ark with Noah, this was an 1980's 8-bit console using interchangeable cartridges. (Google it, it will blow your mind!). From there things got a bit more hardcore, and I started playing DOS-Based games, (Again...google is your friend.) and that progressed through Windows 3.1, until the present where I enjoy intense graphics, captivating story-lines, alternate endings and mind-numbing grinds on both PS4 and Windows PC. Other hobbies include DJ'ing House, Progressive, Trance, Tech and Minimal. I love watching Anime, my favorite shows are Naruto, Bleach and Sword Art Online. Epic, I know.